Testing Flash Impact On Battery Life

[nikster]

German computer magazine c't measured battery life in laptops using a normal HDD, various implementations of Vista ReadyBoost/ReadyDrive, and a flash hard drive (SSD). The results were somewhat disappointing: All the measured differences in battery life were within the range of errors, a few minutes here and there.

http://www.heise.de/mobil/artikel/98198/6

So for now, Flash doesn't save battery life. That's particularly surprising for the SSD - I would have thought a solid state hard disk would use less power.

Another conclusion: Using a USB stick with ReadyBoost/ReadyDrive significantly reduces battery life.

[Guest Reimar]

German computer magazine c't measured battery life in laptops using a normal HDD, various implementations of Vista ReadyBoost/ReadyDrive, and a flash hard drive (SSD). The results were somewhat disappointing: All the measured differences in battery life were within the range of errors, a few minutes here and there.

http://www.heise.de/mobil/artikel/98198/6

So for now, Flash doesn't save battery life. That's particularly surprising for the SSD - I would have thought a solid state hard disk would use less power.

Another conclusion: Using a USB stick with ReadyBoost/ReadyDrive significantly reduces battery life.

You would reduce the Batterey Life Time if you very often switch on and of the Laptop. The HDD's need a lot power within spinup but after that the consumption is quite low. Different for Flash Drives and Readyboost USB Sticks, they need the full power ad all time and the power consumption is at all times on 100%!

[Veazer]

...Different for Flash Drives and Readyboost USB Sticks, they need the full power ad all time and the power consumption is at all times on 100%!

That's not correct for SSDs, read the specs and reviews for some:

SAMSUNG MCAQE32G5APP-0XA00 2.5" 32GB IDE Internal Solid state disk:

"...A stingy 0.5W active and 0.1W idle power consumption is environmentally..."

For a another Samsung model the difference is even more dramatic (from here):

"When the unit is idle, power consumption is next to nothing, drawing only 0.03 W. While in operation, the power consumption was roughly 0.9 W."

That's would mean that the drive consumes less than 4% of the energy it uses when active, not even close to full power.

[Guest Reimar]

There was some test in Germany, I forgot where exactly, with the result that all tested Solid State Disk, Flash Drives and USB Sticks using the full, or nearly full power at all time if connected.

That report was around 6 month ago and they was even testing the Samsung products!